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Highlights: Clippers vs. Mavericks
(2:52)
Day 1 of the 2020 NBA Playoffs, bubble edition, is in the books, and what was an otherwise exciting day of hoops went out, as LeBron James said, on a ‘false’ note. In a tweet that spoke for almost everyone who saw Kristaps Porzingis throw from the Dallas opening series of the series versus the Clippers (a game that eventually lost), LeBron recorded one of the most disappointing events in a NBA playoff game that I can recover.
Porzingis should not be postponed. We’ll go into more detail here, but let’s just be clear from the start: This was a moving decision, and it could have cost the Mavericks a Game 1 call from the Clippers.
Earlier, the Utah Jazz ruined a 57-point performance from Donovan Mitchell (who, to be honest, had an eight-second hand in his own death) by losing to the Nuggets in overtime; the onslaught of the 76ers remains almost impossible for stomach; and the Nets … well, the Nets will not be in the bubble much longer. The Raptors made themselves look like a JV team on Monday.
With all that said, let’s get to it. Here are three key takeaways from Monday’s playoff opener.
1. The Mavericks got snake
When Porzingis was sent off at the 9:10 mark of the third quarter, the Mavericks had a five-point lead (71-66). They were outscored the 13 the rest of the way. And there is your margin of eight points in a 118-110 Clippers victory. Well, no one can sit here and say the Mavericks would win the game if Porzingis ran. But Dallas deserves to find out.
After going 18-2 right out of the gate, Dallas shook the Clippers 48-18 to take a 14-point lead less than halfway through the second quarter. There’s a ridiculous alternative reality in which the Mavericks Monday night were simply the better team.
Porzingis got an iffy technical foul in the first half for the moment showing a modicum of emotion to what substitutes confirmed to be a pretty suspicious foul call, and then he got his second, and apparently outrageous, tech for this:
For what it’s worth it, former official Steve Javie, who works for ESPN, said on the broadcast that he believes officials made the right call on Porzingis’ second tech, saying he got into the situation not as a peacemaker, but as an escalator. That is high debatable.
At least the servant made a small mistake. A misdemeanor. You do not inflict the death penalty on him. I do not want to hear anything about the letter of the law if the officials had no choice. Bull … you know what. They had a choice. An official always has discretion. Use it. The playoffs are emotional. Guys will react in the heat of the moment. You have already given the man one weak tech. Do not double your own mistake and potentially strip a team of a playoff victory, or at least a fair chance at one.
For the record, the team that wins Game 1 of an NBA playoff series wins the series 76 percent of the time. That is to say, the officials would have decided this whole series with just one jumping call. Not right.
2. Doncic, Mitchell history spoiled
Donovan Mitchell and Luka Doncic both made history on Monday night. And they both lost. Mitchell scored 57 points in Utah’s 135-125 overtime loss to the Nuggets, the highest mark in Jazz playoff history and the third highest scoring output in NBA playoff history, followed only 63 points from Michael Jordan at Boston in 1986 and Elgin Baylor’s 61 points against Boston in 1962.
Meanwhile, Doncic – who finished with 42 points, nine assists, seven rebounds, three steals and … 11 rebounds – became the first player in history to score 40 points in a playoff debut and just the fourth player under the age of 21 to set 40 in a playoff game, along with LeBron James, Magic Johnson and Tracy McGrady.
Doncic’s history was potentially ruined by the refs, which is a tragedy (those 11 circumstances did not help either). But Mitchell, as crazy as this sounds for a man who scored 57 points, may have done it himself.
With 1:54 left in the fourth quarter, Utah had a four-point lead and possession. That’s what they refer to as the driver’s driver. But after Mitchell took the incoming pass, he continued to run up the ball a little too casually, focusing on straightening traffic instead of how long it took to get it across the half court. And it cost him. Just before he crossed the time limit, at the mark 1:46, the whistle blew. Eight second violation.
At the next game, Jamal Murray did the following:
That’s a monster swing. From potential take a six- or seven-point lead with a minute and a half to play to just one. Denver eventually tied the game and sent it to overtime, where Utah fell apart, and that was that. Denver takes a 1-0 series lead.
“That’s my fault as a leader and as a point guard at the moment,” Mitchell said of the violation, via ESPN. “That’s terrible on my part. … There’s really no one else to turn it on. I just took my time to run it, and I need to be more aware. I think this is a crucial part of it was game. At the end of the day, I will not put it all on that one piece, but that was a crucial part. “
It’s really a shame. Mitchell was so brilliant in this game. He generated 75 points through points and assists. Only four other players have ever generated a lot of offense in a playoff game: Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Allen Iverson and Russell Westbrook. And the Jazz still lost. Without Bojan Bogdanovic and Mike Conley, Mitchell’s offensive load is remarkably heavy on a Jazz team that – unless you count Jordan Clarkson – has no other player who can make a consistent offense. Mitchell has to do it all. He visited Monday. He had 57 points. But the number he will be thinking about for a long time is eight.
3. Philly’s offense is a mess
The Sixers lost Monday night to the Celtics, 109-101. I still have no idea how close it was, let alone how Philly actually had every chance of winning this game before Boston left too late. In short, the crime of the Sixers’ court is a failure of both design (and by that I mean mostly grid construction) and execution. Seeing these guys try to make any kind of space, just a decent look at the court, in a half court setting is honestly painful.
No one can beat their man from the dribble, which means the defense never has to collapse, which means there are never any open kick-outs for shooters (not that the Sixers have many of these, though, after the trade off of Robert Covington, Dario Saric and Landry Shamet in letting JJ Redick – not to mention Ersan Ilyasova and Marco Belinelli – run in free agency so they could sign Al Horford).
With barely any space (even with Ben Simmons out) there is no schematic creativity to free boys up. At the end of what was to be a close game against Boston, the Sixers, whether by design or with courtesy of unusual awful awareness and execution, went multiple possessions without even giving Joel Embiid a single touch in the post, while Josh Richardson, Alec Burks and Tobias Harris called for pick-and-rolls when they did not arrange for pull-up 3-pointers.
This is Joel Embiid. Give him the ball!
Embiid was not great in this game. His recognition of double teams was a mess, and he turned the ball over too much when the Boston perimeter defender landed on him. After the game, Brett Brown was asked if he was interested in a lineup with four shooters around Embiid to make some more space and theoretically make it harder for Boston to double him.
“Zero,” Brown said of his interest in deploying a four-shooter lineup. “This is – and it does not make me feel good – but this is my experience: I lived with Tim Duncan for five NBA Finals, four of which we won, in 12 years with Pop. And I’m very privileged to have experienced the world of the post player as it relates to spaces and schedules and how people came to him.And one thing that is most resonant is four on the perimeter is the easiest environment for defending to double a post player and have the ability to put out fires as a result. It’s too full. And to occupy an empty zone and space, the court interests me most for the reasons I just said. “
It was Kevin O’Connor from The Ringer who asked the question, and O’Connor followed up: “Are you saying you’re trying to make it an easy outlet for Embiid in the event of a double?”
Brow continued: “Really – and Kevin, it’s a good question and I like to talk about it, because it’s actually an insult to himself. And in my opinion it’s mostly driven from experience. [with Duncan], as I just shared with you, that if you do not occupy the dark, it is my opinion that if Marcus Smart or Tatum or Jaylen Brown come down to the double team Joel – which they often do – if you pass it on, their athletes may burn spend with 3-on-4 way easier than 2-on-3. And I think you’re in an offensive handball position, even if you can occupy that spot of that dark. I think the big dunkers, if you look over the years, they made the sport pretty much in the 4-on-4 game because they were just deadly, like offensive rebounders there, and kind of peek-a-boo -boo play in a big-big relationship. And that’s probably too much of a clinic, but that’s what I think. “
That here is the long and short of that answer: The spot of the dark is along the base. It would be on the opposite side of the pitch if Embiid stepped up, and that darker (who probably would be Ben Simmons if he were healthy) occupied a defender. So now that two guys are going to Embiid, and one is on the dark, that leaves only two perimeter defenders to scramble to three Philly shooters, instead of three defenders to scramble to cover four shooters.
It’s true, two guys trying to turn around to cover the entire perimeter is harder than three guys. What Brown says is meaningful. But with the way Embiid treated Monday double, Brown’s theory did not play out in practice. And it’s not like when Simmons is in the lineup and running down the Sixers’ spaces is especially optimal.
Maybe with another shooter, the double team would be discouraged in the first place. Of course, that would require really good, threatening shooters, which Sixers GM Elton Brand apparently does not believe in. That here we are. Embiid gets double, and if he does not turn it around, he steps it out to non-shooters who are also not good enough to consistently make crime out of the dribble.
Like I said, it’s a failure on all levels. And somehow, the Sixers still have a chance to win the game.
